Skip to main content

Ramayana : The Price of War & Trust

The question you may ask yourself is, what is a Ramayana? Well a Ramayana to put short is an epic Indian poem in Hindu literature. A “Ramayana” is also known as “the Journey of Rama.” And in this journey, the king Rama sets off to save his abducted wife by the name of Sita. In like manner, “Sita’s Ramayana” by Samhita Arni & Moyna Chitrakar is about the woman’s perspective to the Ramayana. It is about the own perspective of Sita, the queen, to be more exact. It is about Sita’s empathy, coupled with her compassion for those that are around her. Given these points, ‘Sita’s Ramayana ‘is very much a must read graphic novel that will move you and spark any feminist curiosity in reading this great book.



The messages throughout this graphic novel vary from loyalty, honor, compassion, the price of war, trust, and ultimately right vs. wrong. I want to focus on the message of the price of war and trust. Sita is abducted by King Ravana. And consequently, Sita’s husband, King Rama and her abductor King Ravana start a war between them. In effect this war ends up killing a lot of people. King Ravana was killed during the battlefield. King Rama then told his wife Sita that she was “free to go, you can do whatever you want, go whenever you want” (Arni 115). Naturally, Sita was shocked. Her husband Rama then stated how “Ravana must of have touched you, and I can’t take you back” (Arni 116).



This shows how being a king comes with high responsibility and honor to be held up. Sita then asks Rama why he fought a war in the first place, and Rama then responded with “I fought it to redeem my honor” (Arni 117). In “Understanding Comics: The Invincible Art” by Scott McCloud, further explains the different aspects of comics whether it be as an artistic medium, or as a literary. In addition, he also talks about how words and pictures are both connected. Moreover, McCloud then further explains how “human experiences can be portrayed in comics through either pictures or words “(McCloud 152). Down below it shows the scene of when Sita told Rama how she was pure, his look of disbelief, and how shocked she was afterwards of his distrust.


Sita’s Ramayana-pg. 116.


The message that Sita’s Ramayana leaves me with is that trust is everything. How can you be with someone that does not trust me in the first place? Trust goes both ways as well. Sita put trust on Rama that he would rescue her, “I waited, I kept myself alive only for Rama” (Arni 119). Sita put a lot of faith and trust on her husband. Unlike Rama, he did not trust Sita. Even after she told him she was pure. A quote that stuck with me from Sita was “instead of love, I found suspicion, instead of justice, I met with false accusation and distrust” (Arni 121).



Works Cited

Anri, Samhita , Chitrakar, Moyna. “Sita’s Ramayana” Groundwood Books. 2018.

McCloud, Scott. “Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.” HarperCollins, 1993.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Analysis of Aya: Life in Yop City

To begin this week's post, I'd like to first address a few things about the author's duty to his/her readers. When we think of reading material from other countries or cultures, what factors are important to us? What information do we need in order to recognize the significance of the author's work? For me, it's important for the author to find some way to connect to me as a reader. Do we share a common experience? Can I relate your story to mine? This is not to say that a writer's work is rendered unimpressive if they choose not to do this. But I do think it goes without saying that most impressionable works hit us emotionally. I also think that an author should be conscious of the world that they are painting for the reader. Is it true what you're writing? Does it provide some sort of insight into the world as you see it? Are you confirming outside opinions of your culture, or are you breaking the stereotypes that have been placed upon you? That being sai...

Bringing Africa into the Fold

The comic Aya: Life in Yop City does a fantastic job of illustrating a culture different from the more popular Western variety. For those reading this, have you ever considered Africa in any way that was not influenced by main stream media? No? Well me either. It is sad to say, but my view of Africa was just - more or less - a vast land of chaos and poverty. Why? Because is that not what the media would have us believe? As a western country ourselves - presuming, of course, that you are reading this from the US or some European country - we do not consider other nations to have much value in comparison to our own. Because we have created a Eurocentric view of what society should be, we have disallowed other countries to feel that their own culture is worth portraying in novels or media. For example, most people are lead to believe that Africa is riddled with disease, famine, and "uneducated" people who are in dire need of help. This just isn't true! There are places ...

The Two Faces of Anarchy in V for Vendetta

As someone who has only seen the movie version of V for Vendetta once many years ago and have never read the graphic novel, I wasn’t exactly sure how similar or different the movie version would be to the graphic novel. I was in for a surprise when I discovered just how vastly different, they are from each other. With that being said, they do have some similarities when strictly looking at the motives of the characters. Let’s dive into those motives and how the author and illustrator of V for Vendetta achieved getting these motives across to their readers. In Scott McCloud’s chapter of Understanding Comics “ Blood in the Gutter ” we are presented with different panel – to – panel transitions, and an introduction to the term “gutter” as being the white space between the panels which is where the audience of reader “takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea” (McCloud, 66). After finishing reading V for Vendetta , several themes or ideas that were most prevalent...